Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1887-09-08
CALVES AND COWS.
breeding and Feeding for Dairy Purpose.
and for Beef.

breeding and Feeding for Dairy Purposes
and for Beef.
How many dairymen who raise the
heifer calves for the dairy show any
distinction in their care and feeding
from that bestowed upon the steers.
| though the former are to be mothers,
and out of their life produce offspring,
and nOurishment for it, while the steer
calf is to be little miser, with only
his own beef to provide for. The de-
velopment of COW begins at her
birth; but she should have heredity to
rely upon to give direction; and then
the farmer can develop it. So we can
see the absurdity of trying to breed a
race of cattle that can possess the
quality that produces mixers, and
| possess beef qualities. The heifer calf
should be fed bone and muscle produce
ing food, and foods that have their
influences in production of milk,
| and less for the promotion
of fat-forming. Many promising
heifer calf had been ruined by feeding
her cornmeal diet, when she should
have had oatmeal, bran and the like;
while many other heifers, fed as they
should be. did not develop into good
cows for the reason that their sire was
beef animal; his prepotency over
| came all other influences, and the
food consumed by his daughter would
go to beef-making rather than to milk.
Again. as to size. Osher things being
equal. it costs more to keep a big cow
than a small one, but the large cow
may possibly have the better power to
digest and assimilate her food. also in
reality we get the best return for the
food consumed, in this one instance
from the large COW. We find some
large COWS large eaters and poor pro-
ducers. and the reverse, and this
| holds as true with small cows. The
dairyman who strives for success must
| maintain friendly alliance with the
butcher
No breed can show record of all
good cows, nor any breed show that
all great performance is, for the
farmer, a profitable desideratum. The
COW that gives fabulous yield of
milk with but little butter and cheese
in it, consuming large rations, is a
white elephant beside another COW
! that with one third of the milk shows
better return in cheese and butter
i with half the ration. Nor is the COW
that consumes forty quarts of grain
per day to make four pounds Of butter
better investment. 1t is perfor.n-
ance the farmer is after. and as soon
as the advocates of any breed can
show uniformity in $40 with COR
responding production, based on some
thing like Il uniform ration, there will
be great boom for that stock. But
so long as only one COW in ten of any
breed is above an average,
and size has nothing to
do with the merits of COW,
there will be clinging to the native
COW. And this can never come about
until the idea of beef and milk in the
same COW are discarded. The moment
beef is made conspicuous in a dairy
breed that moment the breed is lower
ed two grades, if not three. and the
probability of the heifers becoming
good cows lowered conspicuously. 1t
taxes SOOu Wnlle 10 make Soou
dairy breed from breed with beeting
tendencies. but it is quick perform
ance to spoil milking breed by intro
ducing beefy qualities into it. When
! beef is wanted as a prime factor the
production of milk becomes secondary;
but when the dairy and its products
are the farmers dependents, there can
not be too wide separation between
the beef and milking qualities of the
animals. Gould, TN ~ T. Irib.
u1e.